By Kim Kaunian, WPRO News
You won’t need to take dimes on your commute across the Sakonnet River Bridge.
Although the General Assembly passed a trailer bill to the budget Tuesday night that would allow the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority to begin a 10 cent toll on the bridge in mid-August, Chairman Dave Darlington said they won’t physically collect coins from travelers.
“There’s no place to throw a dime,” he told WPRO’s John DePetro Wednesday morning.
Darlington said if people accumulate $5 or $10 in tolls, they’ll be billed. But since there is no other collection system besides the electronic transponder reader, they won’t bill people for a single dime. Those with an E-Z Pass, however, will be charged.
“We’re still figuring out all these issues,” Darlington said. “But more likely, if someone accumulates a number of 10 cent tolls…then we send them a bill. The fact that we don’t send them a bill doesn’t mean the charge isn’t owed.”
Darlington said there is no way for a person to stand in the toll booth to collect money, nor doed RITBA have the funding for the staff.
The toll for the bridge was initially supposed to be 75 cents before the General Assembly passed the budget last week with an article that delayed tolls until next year. The trailer bill overrides the article, and allows the state to keep the tolling option open, something the federal government would have prohibited if the state waited until after the bridge’s completion.
The trailer bill also allows RITBA the opportunity to raise tolls on Newport’s Pell Bridge.
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Kim Kalunian
